25th tank reg. of 10th tank div. - Opole In all, 10 regiments The remaining formations and units for martial law - at their sites at 10:00 (Moscow time) Operational Groups from the Northern Group of Forces will be sent to the Pomer. and Sil. Mil. Dists. linked by a communications hub During the night, information came in that a “Revolutionary Council of National Salvation" has been formed, consisting of 15 people. M. V. Proskurin also relayed this information to me, though there are other reports that the title of this council included 16 — but others!!47 At 6:00 a.m. (local time) on 13.12.81-Cde. Jaruzelski addressed the nation on radio and TV48 !? Walesa (Bujak, Michnik) have fled from Gdansk. Some of the leadership of "S" have been arrested. The navy begins coastline operations at 6:00 (at 3:00 it was assigned the mission) Legnica-work is proceeding. They began with the detention of as many as 20 people. Merezhko reported that they have everything in order. In Wroclaw and Legnica, crowds gathered. Wroclaw 250-300 people. But no resistance was shown. The radio stn. has been placed under guard. NATIONAL UNDERGROUND 1.5 hours W. Jaruzelski (Dep. Min.) First Session of the Military Council of Nat. Salvation, from 11:00 to 19:30 To let the people know that the Army has saved the nation and the country The moment is chosen - successful, there were no such things, and it is impossible to delay it any further Ideally taking account of the public mood and other factors. I. there is success, but difficulties lie ahead. The West will boycott, but the allies will help.49 Martial law can be extended by several months. But in accordance with measures to restore order in the provinces, they must display resolve, careful organization, and exactingness A profound change50 of cadres is necessary: a purge in the PZPR and the gov't. Comdrs. alloted by zones. He believes they must allot zones for the commanders My Appoint Gen. Zielinski - a secretary WRON. (head of Main Pers. Direct. in Min. of Nat.Def.) Remove the Katowice governor; appoint Gen. Paszkowski (former ambass. to Mongolia) assessment personal opinion Krepski gave a speech. The content? Siwicki spoke and gave instructions to every Draft of a Ciph. Teleg. to Moscow I. ?? II. The Military Council of National Salvation will concentrate all polit. power in the country, but the nature of its activity so far in our view is not that of a collegial leadership. Cde. W. Jaruzelski has preserved for himself all aspects of political and military leadership. Preliminary results of the struggle to wipe out the counterrevol.51 confirm that there are sufficient forces to destroy it successfully on their own without the provision of any sort of military help from outside. The active work of the MVD and State Sec. organs in detaining the leaders of the counterrevolution has strengthened the position of the military-political leadership of the country, and this creates the necessary preconditions for the stabilization of the social-polit. situation in the country. The alignment of forces is gradually shifting in favor of the leadership of the country.52 The Economy see Oleg Nikonov Foreign Policy Activity N. S. Leonov In addition to this, the participation of a large proportion 'Translator's Note: A slight grammatical error in the original has been corrected in the translation. 2 Translator's Note: These ellipses were in the original. The three signatures on the ciphered telegram were those of Boris Aristov, Vitalii Pavlov, and Viktor Kulikov (see entry below). Pavlov, the KGB station chief in Warsaw, wrote in his memoirs that his "close contact with the Soviet ambassador, B. I. Aristov, who kept in constant touch with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, A. A. Gromyko, enabled me to have a good sense of how the MFA was assessing things. I also was aware of the close relations among Yu. V. Andropov, A. A. Gromyko, and the defense minister, D. F. Ustinov. Grasping this, the ambassador and I began to prepare joint reports under two signatures. This practice facilitated a thorough and comprehensive evaluation of all the circumstances and facts that became know to us both through embassy channels and through the KGB residency's channels. My closest contact of all was with the representative in Poland of the Main Command of the Warsaw Pact Joint Armed Forces, Army-General A. F. Shcheglov, who naturally had a good sense of how our Military High Command viewed things. He sometimes added his efforts to the joint reports that the ambassador and I sent back to the Center, especially when they dealt with military issues. During the most critical phases of the situation in Poland, the commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact Joint Armed Forces, Marshal V. G. Kulikov, would come here to meet urgently with the ambassador and me. I gave him thorough briefings on the most important aspects of the situation, naturally without referring to the sources of my information. The marshal and I had a very good rapport, and I retain a good impression of him to this day. . . . Only with the military attache, Major-General Fomenko [it should be Khomenko - M.K.] did I somehow fail to develop close relations. Perhaps this was partly due to the well-known rivalry between the GRU, which he represented, and the foreign intelligence branch of the KGB." Pavlov added that Khomenko's reports were “not sufficiently competent and did not always take account of the social and economic dimensions of the Polish crisis." See Bylem rezydentem KGB w Polsce (Warsaw: BGW, 1994), PP. 186-187. 3 Translator's Note: The General Staff building was the hub of the martial law operation. It was also the site where Jaruzelski and other top military commanders made a final decision on 9 December to proceed with martial law. 4 Translator's Note: From here to the bottom of the page, Anoshkin records sentences that appeared the next day as a paragraph in a scathing Soviet article about the situation in Poland. See "K polozheniyu v Pol'she," Pravda (Moscow), 11 December 1981, p. 5. On the 11th, Anoshkin added a brief reference to this article in the left-hand margin below. The Pravda article diverges very slightly from what Anoshkin records here, as indicated below. 5 Translator's Note: In the Pravda article, the latter part of this sentence reads: "... about the use of lines of communication passing through Polish territory to exert pressure on Poland's allies." -CMEA is the acronym for the "Council on Mutual Economic Assistance." "Translator's Note: The Pravda article refers to just the Soviet-Polish "border” rather than the plural “borders." 7 Translator's Note: Abbreviation for Viktor Georgievich Kulikov. * Translator's Note: Abbreviation for Dmitrii Fedorovich Ustinov. 'Translator's Note: At the CPSU Politburo meeting on 10 December 1981, the Soviet KGB chairman, Yurii Andropov, noted that he had "spoken yesterday with Milewski." Andropov expressed puzzlement that Milewski "doesn't know about 'Operation X' [the martial law operation] and about the concrete timeframe in which it would be carried out." Cited from "Zasedanie Politbyuro TsK KPSS 10 dekabrya 1981 g.: K voprosu o polozhenii v Pol'she," 10 December 1981 (Top Secret), in Tsentr Khraneniya Sovremennoi Dokumentatsii (TsKhSD), Fond (F.) 89, Opis' (Op.) 66, Delo (D.) 6, List (L.) 7, which I translated in Issue No. 5 of the CWIHP Bulletin, pp. 134-138. Because of unavoidable ambiguities in the Russian language, it is possible that the “we” in this sentence from Anoshkin's notebook should be translated as "they," but the meaning in either case is the same. 10 Translator's Note: This entire page is in Kulikov's handwriting. "Translator's Note: These comments are fully in line with the CPSU Politburo's decisions on the 10th. See "Zasedanie Politbyuro TSK KPSS 10 dekabrya 1981 goda,” esp. Ll. 5-12. 12 Translator's Note: According to Anoshkin (in a conversation at the Jachranka conference on 11 November 1997), these lines report what Jaruzelski said after being informed of Rusakov's response. 13 Translator's Note: At the CPSU Politburo meeting on December 10, Soviet leaders instructed "Cdes. Tikhonov, Kirilenko, Dolgikh, Arkhipov, and Baibakov to continue studying the issue of economic aid to Poland, taking account of the exchange of views at the CC Politburo session." (See “Zasedanie Politbyuro TSK KPSS 10 dekabrya 1981 goda," L. 14.) 14 Translator's Note: Diagonally across the upper left-hand corner of this page is the following: "Reported to the WTO Cin-C at 14:45 (local time). Approved. I will take action." 15 Translator's Note: "Bulava" is the Russian word for "mace." 16 Translator's Note: The ellipses here were in the original. 17 Translator's Note: The ellipses here were in the original. The nickname "Shilka," derived from a famous battle, was used for the ZSU-23-4 self-propelled air defense artillery system. The Soviet Army deployed thousands of ZSU-23-4s, and the East European armies also possessed large quantities. 18 Translator's Note: These lines indicate that Soviet armored combat vehicles in Poland, when moved out to various sites, were to be disguised as Polish vehicles. 19 Translator's Note: Rembertow, on the eastern outskirts of Warsaw, was a key Soviet military base and military communications center. It is currently the site of the Polish National Defense Academy, the Polish Military Staff College, and-most important of all-the Central Military Archive. 20 Translator's Note: Two additional names, Saventsov and Grechiko, were listed here but then crossed out. 21 Translator's Note: Krzywa is an airfield in Legnica Province, some 33 kilometers outside the city of Legnica in southwestern Poland near the Czech and German borders. Legnica was the headquarters of the Soviet Union's Northern Group of Forces, and Krzywa was the main air base for those forces. With a 2,500-meter airstrip, the Krzywa airfield can accommodate any type of aicraft. 22 Translator's Note: There is no fourth point listed after the number. 23 Translator's Note: Helenow is a small village approximately 100 kilometers south of Warsaw, which was used by the Polish government. In a castle there, Kulikov frequently held meetings with Jaruzelski and other Polish leaders during the 1980-81 |